


Slipping Your Skin

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dragons, M/M, Transformation, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To win the war, Dean Winchester accepted that he'd have to make some sacrifices. He just didn't ever think one of them might be his humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slipping Your Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [castiel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=castiel).



> [Slipping Your Skin: the art](http://dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com/145390.html)

He can see the landing strip from miles away, lit up by parallel rows of brushfire. The night is dark around him—overcast now that he has dipped below the cloud cover. He’s tempted to rise again, higher into the sky where the air is bright with stars, but his body is dragging with exhaustion, and the wind currents feel like acid against the gashes along his right flank. There’s a deep burn in his back and chest muscles, and a trembling in his wings that makes him remember a time when they folded on him, dropping him onto the landing strip in an explosion of dirt and sparking flame as he rolled off course and through the fires.

He needs to get down there now if he wants to avoid a repeat performance.

He tilts his wings, cupping air and slowing: beginning his descent. The sudden flurry of activity around the fires tells him that his approach isn’t going unnoticed, and his claws twitch in a reflexive, grabbing motion. That’s prey down there—that’s red, wriggling meat. He’s been pulling bodies apart all day, snapping bones and rending limbs from thicker trunks, but that wasn’t feeding. Too much of the meat on the front lines is poisoned—leaves him sick and ill—and so he’s taken to dropping the leftover shreds of flesh onto the battlefield for the crows and bugs.

He’s starting to swerve from the fires—he’ll feel better if he eats, if he gets some untainted blood down his throat—when a burst of white light catches his attention at the end of the landing strip. The light sings in his veins, resonating through his heartbeat, and he corrects his course a second time, dropping lower.

His landing isn’t at all graceful—he comes in fast and hard: wearied from a long day spent in the sky and too distracted by the urge to kill to finesse his approach. He doesn’t roll into the fires again, at least, and he clings to that small solace as he stumbles along the landing strip, wings awkwardly flapping out to either side. He misses his step a moment later, falling over and skidding the final eighty or ninety yards. His momentum, combined with the weight of his body, drives a deep furrow into the earth, and when he finally comes to a rest, he can feel a new ridge of soil and rocks piled high against his back.

There’s shouting around him, and a confusion of smells, and tired or not he lifts his head with a snap at the nearest shadow, hissing.

“Shit!” the shadow swears, stumbling backwards.

He’s happy to see that the approaching swarms are moving away again, and his tail lashes as he tries to heave himself to his feet. Once he’s up, he’ll show them. He’ll fill his belly warm and solid and then curl up somewhere high to rest.

“Dean.”

That voice isn’t coming from a shadow, but from the light that drew his attention here in the first place. The light is smaller now, pulled in on itself, but it isn’t any less brilliant, and he lets his inner eyelids flick shut to protect his vision. Thinks about swatting out with one clawed hand to make the light go away.

“It’s time to come in, Dean,” the light says. “You’re among friends here.”

He can’t make his legs respond correctly, so he snaps at the light instead, catching the corner of a long, flapping bit of cloth between two of his longer fangs. A growl rumbles through him, low and threatening, as he drags the light closer. He wonders how it will taste.

“Dean Winchester, remember who you are!”

He hesitates, blinking at the unexpected iron in that voice. Dean. The name is ... the name’s familiar.

“Dean!” That’s a new voice, and he _(Dean—he might be Dean)_ lifts his head to peer toward the sound.

The light makes a startled noise as it leaves the ground, pulled up to dangle in midair while Dean chews absently on its cloth coverings, and then calls, “Stay back, Sam!”

But the new voice is still coming closer—not a light, but not one of the shadows, either. This shape is ... interesting.

“Dean!” the shape yells. “Put him down!”

Dean huffs out a breath that ruffles the shape’s coverings and hair, but the shape doesn’t pay any mind. It doesn’t seem to care about his teeth or claws, either, sprinting over and reaching up like it’s eager to climb inside his mouth. For some reason, Dean finds himself lowering his head—close enough to the ground for the light to regain its footing—and then the shape is running gentle hands along Dean’s jaw line and as high up over his snout as it can reach.

“Dean,” the shape whispers. “Come back to me. Come back.”

It seems to Dean that the shape wants him to do something—something he should already be doing, but can’t quite remember.

“Try,” the shape pleads. “Try, _please_.” It glances back at the light, which has untangled itself from the bit of cloth Dean is still absently holding onto, and says, “Cas, do something. Snap him out of it, damn it!”

The light moves in again, and the tickle of an old memory has Dean thinking he should be backing away from it, but he can’t bring himself to disengage from the shape’s touch. There’s something comforting in that barely felt caress, and he’s so tired. He doesn’t want to run anymore. Doesn’t want to fight. The gashes along his flank burn as he accidentally brushes them with one mantling wing.

“Return to us, Dean Winchester,” the light says, resting both hands just below Dean’s eye ridge. “It’s time to lay down your sword. It’s time to rest.”

Something clicks inside Dean’s head—blinding fission of light—and then he’s tumbling down a white-hot tunnel, falling into himself. It hurts, his body twisting around and growing compact and heavy, and he lets out a bellow that becomes a roar that becomes a yell. And then he’s lying on the ground, naked and cold and bleeding, with Castiel’s trench coat filling his mouth. He spits it out immediately, and coughs, and then hunches in on himself with a grimace, one hand going to the deep claw marks raking his side.

“He’s hurt!”

Fingers land on Dean’s throat in the wake of the words, and despite the pain he tries to pull away. He’s vulnerable like this, skin gone soft and as easy to shred as a sheep’s. But the fingers don’t draw blood, and neither does the other hand that grips him firmly, just below the lowest gash. He’s held still for a moment while he panics—he has to get away, has to find a way back into his own shape, behind the protection of interlocking, metal-laced scales—and then the hands go away again.

“He’ll live.”

“Heal him!” That voice again. That familiar, comforting voice. If Dean wraps himself in that voice, he thinks he might have armor enough after all.

 _Sam,_ he tries to say. _Sammy._

“There are others more grievously wou—”

“I don’t care. You and your brothers did this to him, you sanctimonious son of a bitch. Now fucking heal him.”

Dean doesn’t need the help, though, and he knows it. Painful or not, these wounds weren’t inflicted by the Other—the KillDeath From Below that has left Dean burnt and nearly crippled after all but one of their brief meetings—and they should heal quickly and cleanly.

When the hands return, dry and cool on his bare skin, he flinches away instinctively. He isn’t quick enough to escape the flood of energy, though, and he cries out as his flesh knits back together into a seamless, vulnerable whole.

He opens his eyes to see Castiel straightening. The angel is missing his coat and looks more disheveled than usual, and Dean winces as his brain flickers with the memory of a tiny light being jerked off the ground and into the air. The flicker dims as Sam takes Castiel’s place, getting an arm around Dean’s waist and pulling him upright.

“Can you walk?” Sam pants in his ear.

Dean tries and immediately starts to go over—he’s missing an extra pair of legs, for some reason. Doesn’t have a tail to balance with, either. When he lifts a hand to his head, he has fingers and not claws.

Looks like his armor isn’t the only thing he’s lost.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and then promptly leans forward in the protective circle of his brother’s arms and throws up.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Dean steps out of the shower one hour later, he’s clean but no clearer on just who, exactly, he is. He walks gingerly, hands held out to either side to maintain his center of gravity, and then stops in front of the door. It’s closed, and he can’t remember how to open it. Or rather, he can’t remember how to open it in this body. If he were himself, he’d just snort on the thing and knock it down.

“Sam,” he calls after a moment. The word rasps against his throat, and his voice sounds strange in the air. Foreign.

He can hear movement on the other side. “Yeah?”

“I can’t get out.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then the door eases open. Dean moves back a few steps to give it room to clear him and meets his brothermateloverfriendSammy’s eyes.

Sam’s looking at him with careful concern, like Dean might fall over at any moment. “You okay?” he checks.

“Yeah,” Dean answers, although he suspects that isn’t actually the case. When he blinks, he’s assaulted by a memory of tearing flesh, the taste of blood spilling down his throat.

Sam grips Dean’s arm, pulling him out of the battlefield, and Dean finds himself being helped over to the bed. “Here,” Sam says, sitting him down and passing him a pair of—jeans, these are jeans.

Dean accepts the stiff fabric and then sits there looking down at it doubtfully. “What’s this for?”

Sam’s jaw pulls tight, but his voice is calm as he answers, “You can’t walk around outside naked, dude. Gotta get dressed before we can get you some food.”

The way Dean’s stomach rumbles is enough to convince him he’s hungry, so he struggles with the fabric, trying to figure out how it works. After a few moments Sam takes pity on him and helps, ignoring the face Dean makes as he realizes how constricting the material is.

“I don’t like—”

“Tough. I won’t make you wear a shirt, but you’re not traumatizing the mess hall again.”

After a brief, one-sided argument in which Sam tries to get Dean to put some shoes on and Dean ignores him, Sam finally opens the door and releases Dean back out into the night. It’s different now: duller and less filled with scents, although he can feel that other world lurking around the edges of his mind.

Sam’s hand digs into his arm with a sudden, shooting pain. “No.”

Slowly, Dean tears his eyes from the sky and looks over. There are strange things moving inside his skin, demanding to be uncaged. This isn’t his body. He doesn’t belong here.

“No,” Sam repeats. “You’re grounded, Dean. Do you hear me?”

Sam can’t demand that from him, though. Dean made a deal with Michael. He took the angel’s power into himself, offering up his body but keeping his soul free—not a possession, not life as an angel condom, but something else. A reforging.

He’s Michael’s weapon now, Michael’s power breathed to life, but he’s more than that. He yearns for the heat of battle, yes—longs to rip out the KillDeath From Below’s throat and drink down its polluted blood—but he also craves the wind and the wide world and the thrill of flight. Dean wants to be free, and he can feel that hunger turning sharp and electric within him as he looks back up.

The clouds shift, and he catches a glimpse of the moon.

A sudden attack takes him by surprise, making him lash out with arms far too weak and clawless, and it takes a few seconds to realize that it isn’t an attack at all. It’s Sam’s mouth on his, Sam crowding him up against a wall. Sam is larger than him, and that’s wrong, it’s not right, and Dean stiffens in confusion.

“Love you,” Sam mumbles into his mouth. “Love you, Dean. Stay with me. Stay with me now. Be here with me.”

His hands drop down to Dean’s ass, palming it through the jeans and dragging their crotches together. Some of the violent hunger slips away at that touch, replaced by a more primal desire, and Dean finds himself melting into what he’s beginning to remember is called a kiss.

He likes this. He likes this almost as much as flying, he thinks, and then Sam does something with his tongue while grinding against him and Dean realizes that this is _better_ than flying. It’s freer.

He kisses back eagerly, hands roving and tugging at the layers of clothing Sam is hiding in, but Sam catches Dean’s hands and turns his face away, panting.

“Sam,” Dean whines, straining to touch his brother. “Sammy.”

“Later,” Sam answers. “Right now, you need to eat.” He transfers both of Dean’s wrists to his left hand and uses his right to brush the side of Dean’s face. “When’s the last time you had a meal?”

“Hellhounds count?” Dean asks, sorting through the confusing, fragmented memories of his most recent excursion as Michael’s Champion.

The face Sam makes tells him the answer is ‘no’.

“Come on,” Sam says, stepping back without releasing Dean. “I asked Jeannie to make you some steak.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As Dean eats, he’s able to sort out the conflicting thoughts and impulses coursing through him—knows which of the fractured halves of his brain they’re coming from—but that isn’t enough. He still feels more dragon than man, like this body is a mistake and the one Michael’s power gave him—the one he accepted to keep Sam from turning into a Lucifer cozy—is his true form. And people are staring as he wolfs down his steak, juices running down his chin, which is making him uncomfortable.

“Come on,” Sam says, leaning across the table and wiping Dean’s face clean with a spare napkin. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

‘Somewhere else’ turns out to be a darkened patch of field near the landing strip, where glowing embers still burn at the hearts of the signal fires. Sam settles himself down on the ground, unbuttoning and removing his shirt before reaching up for Dean. Dean accepts the invitation wordlessly, crawling close and sliding his chest against his brother’s.

At the first, smooth brush of Sam’s flesh against his, the restless, blood-tinged thoughts that have been circling in Dean’s head finally settle. He lets out a sigh, sinking deeper into his body—into the skin he was born to.

“That’s it,” Sam murmurs, encouraging. His arm comes up around Dean’s back, maneuvering him closer.

“Sam,” Dean whispers, begging, and Sam puts his mouth by Dean’s ear and starts to talk, reminding him of old memories, and sunlight, and easier times. Leading him back just as surely as the dying fires to their left did earlier tonight.

Eventually, when their heartbeats have found a single rhythm, Sam quiets and settles for simply stroking one hand across Dean’s back and down his side.

“How long was I gone?” Dean asks after a few minutes.

“Three days.”

Funny how it always feels like longer.

“Zach and Michael want you out again tomorrow,” Sam announces into the silence.

Dean starts to stiffen, throat aching with threatening sobs—he just wants to be himself for a while, damn it. He wants to be here with Sam, not covering himself in blood and death and a reptile’s murderous, primal thoughts.

Sam rubs blunt fingers against Dean’s skull and kisses his forehead. “I told them to go fuck themselves. You’re taking a vacation.”

“Sammy,” Dean starts, shaking his head.

“No arguments, Dean,” Sam says. There’s more than a hint of stubborn steel in his voice. “The last few times you’ve come back, you’ve been—it’s taking longer and longer to snap you out of it. You need to rest. Spend a little more time in your own skin so you can remember which one you belong in.”

Tonight, in this moment, Dean isn’t confused at all.

 _Here,_ he thinks, curling closer into his brother. _I belong here._


End file.
